LOL this is not true at all. Goran's backhand is light years better than Roddick's little poop of a backhand. Roddick's forehand in his 03-04 is probably better, but then he turned his forehand into this wierd moonbally thing for the remainder of his career. On grass Goran does everything better than Roddick, much more dominant serve, far better return, more athleticsm and better movement, much better volleys. People who have seen the two play know there is no comparision in their abilities on that particular surface. It just shows how much stronger the Sampras era on grass was that the two have almost the same # of finals, when there is no comparision in their grass court abilities.

Agreed--but your assessment is possible because you are actually familiar with the players/games of yesterday, which only leads to one conclusion: Roddick's inferior skills (baseline obsessed, flat feet, terrible movement, poor hands, zero understanding of great/effective volleying techniques, etc.) are suited to today's game (explaining his Wimbledon finals), but with the same poor combination of skills, he does not make the second week of Wimbledon of the 1990s.

agree that agassi underachieved at the USO , but disagree with other points here ....

the AO in 2000 while faster than usual was not faster than the USO in 95,2001 and 2002 ...

while I do agree that the 4-0 and 0-2 h2hs at the respective slams do not accurately reflect their prowess and matchup at those surfaces, I do definitely think that the speed, bounce of the courts , even among HCs did matter quite a bit .....

The US Open hard courts wasn't even fast in the 90s until 1997 when they were sped up. In the mid 90s the hard courts there were medium paced. They were very fast from 1997-2000, before being slowed down again after 2000. So Sampras had his best and most dominant period at the US Open from 1993-1996 when the courts there weren't even that fast, and didn't win any titles there from 1997-2000 when they were at their fastest. Thus another myth regarding Sampras is that he won 12 out of his 14 slams on fast surfaces.

It made sense for the US Open organisers to slow down the courts. Agassi was the one big superstar that casual American fans cared about, and Courier and Chang were both also more comfortable on a more mid-paced surface. Still Agassi did complain that the hard courts used for the USA-Croatia Davis Cup tie in 2005 were too slow, so I doubt he was significantly less comfortable on fast hard courts than slower ones.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Sampras served a career-high 37 aces in that semi against Agassi, and Agassi himself was winning a lot of quick, easy points on his own serve.

Still I do think that 2000 Australian Open courts were slower than the super-fast 1997-2000 US Open courts, but definitely faster than the 1993-1996 mid-paced and 2001-2002 fast but not crazy fast US Open courts.

I think that Agassi's Australian Open record was more testament to his supremely good training programme and conditioning during the off-season, when a lot of other guys weren't working anywhere near as hard, than the variation of the hard court used. Sampras's dominant US Open h2h against Agassi I think can be explained by Sampras simply being a better big match and clutch player than Agassi. The US Open was clearly the tournament that Agassi cared about the most, and for Sampras it was at worst a close second behind Wimbledon. That was the biggest neutral stage where they could play each other (as Wimbledon heavily favoured Sampras of course), and playing Agassi on such a big stage usually brought out the best in Sampras.

Those 2001-2002 US Open matches proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Sampras was the better player. Agassi was one of the top 2-3 players in the world during that period, and Sampras was declining and suffering a long title drought. Agassi had no business losing either of those two matches but Sampras had the last laugh.

Agassi choked against Rafter in 2-five setters, so probably Agassi's mental shortcomings were the difference.

No. Rafter was the better player in both matches. In one of them Rafter had no problem handling Agassi's power shots and that fact showed on Agassi's face. To rub salt into the wound, Agassi made Rafter run side to side only for Rafter to then hit his own power shot past Agassi.

the wimbledon of pre-2002 is not even close to the wimbledon of 2002 on. the speed difference was huge.

in summary:

1) if the grass had always been the speed of pre-2002 then someone like nadal would have had very little change of winning wimbledon multiple times (a fluke might have happened).

2) if the grass had always been the speed of 2002+ then guys like agassi and lendl would have won multiple wimbledons and a guy like sampras would have had much lesser success.

this. roddick wouldn't have been a lock to make the second week unless he served out of his mind because his weaknesses would have been exposed on the fast grass. what hasn't been mentioned here but is a big part of the reason why agassi won in 92 was his ability to hit off the rise. it robbed the s&v-ers of time to get to net and like the late great arthur ashe said "the low, skidding ball off the grass didn't bother agassi much". did you see lendl's face during the men's final this past year? it's like he was thinking "i could have won on this stuff". while i'm not sure sampras would have gone home empty handed more often i think it would have made the great baseliners of the 80s and 90s (lendl, agassi, wilander and courier) more successful at wimbledon.

playing from the baseline then just wasn't done. nowadays, everyone does

02 wimbledon was a sign of things to come

but one wimbledon is just right for him. he skipped it on multiple occasions, and was never a threat for the title there, except in 99

but then, that was momentum off his great run

grass was his worst surface, and he was not a natural clay court player either. those early 90s finals at RG are misleading

even when he won in 99, he had his luck with that (you get the good and bad throughout a career), he won playing hard court tennis

oh, and if anyone is wondering how nadal-agassi would go on 90s grass, nadal would edge it. why?

we already saw it in 06. old agassi, young nadal (but not baby nadal, though he was strictly clay at that point)

because of that lefty spin serve out wide and retrieving every ball

against a sampras, no, nadal would lose on 90s grass. but against an agassi, who hits flat, dictates from the baseline, prefers facing players with flat shots and power than players with lots of topspin on their shots...

in short, nadal's superior athleticism would move agassi around

agassi is not a great mover

nadal's spinny shots is the opposite of what agassi liked to play

agassi is then forced out his comfort zone to serve and volley, nadal retrieves and passes, even on 90s grass

however, make no mistake, at the AO and US, agassi would have the last laugh over nadal. those flat shots on hard court are exactly what nadal hates

against a sampras, no, nadal would lose on 90s grass. but against an agassi, who hits flat, dictates from the baseline, prefers facing players with flat shots and power than players with lots of topspin on their shots...

in short, nadal's superior athleticism would move agassi around

agassi is not a great mover

nadal's spinny shots is the opposite of what agassi liked to play

agassi is then forced out his comfort zone to serve and volley, nadal retrieves and passes, even on 90s grass

however, make no mistake, at the AO and US, agassi would have the last laugh over nadal. those flat shots on hard court are exactly what nadal hates

what are you on??? there is a reason for the 20 year gap between borg and nadal winning the french and wimbledon back to back (during which time there were huge changes made in terms of wimbledon's court surface and ball). there was a reason lendl skipped most of the clay court season (where he made a killing) and instead practiced on grass, worked on his net game and played nearly every grass court tourney there was leading up to "the fortnight". the reason was the grass didn't play like it does now. the ball didn't set up on the 90s grass at all and the courts in the 90s were all chewed up in the middle of the court by the 3rd round so the bouces are gonna be unpredicable unlike today where the most chewed up part of the court is at the baseline. in fact, the area around the baseline was usually slick, both of which are going to affect rafa's game more than agassi's. aa pretty much recovered to the middle of the court whereas rafa runs around his backhand a ton. it would have been trickier doing that on a slick court. the courts being chewed up in the middle means that any ball landing in the middle of the court can take an akward bounce. due to their different swingpaths, that's more likely to affect rafa than aa.

i didn't quote it but what you said about rafa's lefty serve giving aa fits is garbage. first of all, the grass back then seemed to negate some of the action on the kicker (the slice serve was deadly on it though) and andre managed to beat one of the best serving lefties of all time for the 92 title (ivanisevic). aa gambled quite a bit returning and if rafa got into a pattern of throwning the serve wide to aa's backhand like you suggested, rafa's prolly gonna see aa return up the line (into rafa's backhand) alot. that's not a good pattern of play for rafa.